


Let Me Walk In Darkness

by NobleZeda



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Imprisonment, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9949937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleZeda/pseuds/NobleZeda
Summary: Lance gets mad at himself after being captured. Isn't he past this sort of thing by now?





	

**Author's Note:**

> get this out of my face i dont want 2 look at it anymore also hi yeah i do still write stuff even tho u wouldnt know it

Lance cradled his head in his hands. _I’m such an idiot._

The Galra had taken his armor. He was down to only a thin layer of jumpsuit, torn in some places. He was bleeding.

They forced him into a tiny, dark cell and left him there, in utter blackness. He didn’t even bother getting up, just curled into himself and tried to stop shaking. He had messed up. He’d messed up so bad.

_“Step back, you guys, I got this!” Lance yelled, a typical show of arrogance from him. He readied his weapon, took aim, and fired off a shot, despite all the protests ringing through his radio. What choice did they have? There were Galra all over and the paladins were losing ground. Someone had to do something. Maybe if Lance finally pulled off something right, the others would appreciate him for once._

_The only problem was, he had no idea what he was doing._

_He took the shot anyway, watched it miss his target by several feet and strike the control panel on the far wall. A door that Keith had jammed upon their entrance sprang open, and fifty more Galra pooled in._

_“Oh, come on! Are you kidding me, Lance?” Pidge shouted. “Now we’ll never make it out of here!”_

_“Congratulations, moron, you just brought our chances of survival from zero to impossible!” added Keith._

_“Guys, enough!” yelled Shiro. “We need to get back to our lions!”_

_Allura’s voice crackled into Lance’s helmet, “Paladins! We need to leave immediately! Our defenses won’t hold!”_

_They took off running. Lance, who had run up a few paces to take his pathetic shot, was closest to the enemy. Quickly overwhelmed. The others were already climbing into their lions, probably mistaking his shouts of terror for the usual useless babble that poured out of his mouth. By the time Shiro was in the black lion’s command center, Lance’s gun had been ripped from him and at least a dozen Galra were physically on top of him._

_“Lance! Hang on!” Shiro cried, the last thing Lance saw or heard of the paladins._

It was the stupidest thing he’d ever done. Likely the last thing. The others were probably angry, probably hated him for it.

_Just don’t come for me_ , he thought. _Don’t try to rescue me, just go._

If the black lion could bond with both Shiro _and_ Zarkon, then that must mean that Blue could pick someone else to bond with, too. Someone the Voltron Team actually liked and worked well with and appreciated. Someone who didn’t jeopardize their lives just because he wanted a second in the spotlight. Instead of rescuing Lance, they should find that person and forget Lance ever existed.

He could picture it now: his nameless, faceless, abstract replacement asking Shiro, _You said there was a pilot for the blue lion before me. What were they like?_

Shiro gave that tired sigh, the one he had invented and reserved for all matters marked ‘Lance.’ _He was irresponsible_ , Shiro would say. _Honestly, there isn’t much of a legacy you have to worry about living up to. You’ll get along with the others just fine. In fact, I think Keith likes you already._

Oh man, Lance really was the worst. Anybody could be a better paladin than he could. They would probably get someone who could fight like Keith and problem-solve like Hunk and lead like Shiro and understand science like Pidge. They would all like the new paladin more than they had ever liked Lance. Soon, everyone would forget his blip of existence on Team Voltron.

Lance could hear his heavy, unhinged breathing echoing off the cell walls. This space was much too small for him. He was going to die here.

 

* * *

 

He found a corner and positioned himself in it. He felt better if it seemed like no one could sneak up on him. After a while, all the shadows at his back had made him paranoid.

_Will they even feed me?_ he wondered. _Maybe they’ll just leave me here to rot. But then, why even take me prisoner?_

What if they were going to torture him for information? What if they were trying to lure the other members of Voltron here by keeping him prisoner, and thereby capture the rest of the lions? What if they did both?

Lance shivered, hugged himself tighter. He didn’t want the others to come for him. He didn’t think he could face them if they did. Shiro knew when to cut losses, though, and Lance wasn’t much of a loss. The only thing that would change onboard the ship was that Hunk would hang out with Pidge more instead. And training sessions would probably go a lot smoother.

Tighter. Tighter. Lance hugged himself until his arms hurt. Tighter, just like his throat kept getting tighter.

If he wasn’t going to be a paladin anymore, did he still have to be brave? It was okay to cry if no one was coming, wasn’t it? That just meant he didn’t have to worry about anyone finding him like this.

 

* * *

 

Keith charged onto the bridge, flinging his helmet to one side. It crashed against the wall and clattered to the floor.

“They took Lance!” he yelled angrily, as if the others weren’t aware. Wide-eyed, they all jumped as Keith stormed up to the main control panel. Shiro was the only one not yet present, but he couldn’t have been far behind.

“He’s—he’s not—do you think he’s—” Hunk stuttered. He couldn’t seem to get out his whole question.

“We know that Lance is not dead,” Allura said, voice shaking with worry. “The Blue Lion would’ve triggered a broadcast signal that it had lost its paladin. We must assume that Lance is still aboard their vessel.”

Shiro burst into the room. “Find out where that ship is headed!” he ordered. “We have to get Lance back.”

“There’s no way to predict where it’s jumping!” said Coran. “We have no way of tracking it!”

“Yes we do!” said Pidge. “The Blue Lion! If they have Lance, then that means the Blue Lion is still on board. We can track them by tracking it.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Shiro. “We’ll track them, and we’ll follow them, and we’ll get inside. We find Lance and get him out of there.”

“But there were hundreds of Galra on that ship!” Hunk cried. “Not that I don’t want to find Lance as soon as possible, but we barely made it out of there with our lives just now. There’s no way we’ll be able to sneak on board, find Lance, and sneak back out undetected, and we _can’t_ beat them with sheer firepower. Especially not while we’re down a man.”

Fire boiled Keith from the inside. He was bruised, he was exhausted, he was emotional—and Hunk had the gall to say something like that? “Weren’t you listening?” he screamed. “They have Lance! Every second that we waste is another second he’s their captive. Without him, we can’t form Voltron. There is no other option. We are getting on that ship as soon as possible, I don’t care how many Galra there are.”

“Keith, Hunk is right,” Allura interjected. She still looked at him like she thought he might go on a bloodthirsty rampage at any second. Was she siding with Hunk just because she didn’t like Keith anymore? “This could be a trap to lure the lions straight into Galra hands. We have to be careful.”

“There’s no _time_!”

“If we go in half-cocked—” Pidge began, but Keith ran right over the end of that sentence.

“We cannot afford to waste a single second,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be tracking Blue?”

There was a second of silence. In that moment, Keith hated them all. Couldn’t they see how important this was? Why weren’t they listening to him? Was it because they still saw GALRA blazoned on his forehead when they looked at him? Was that why they stared at him now? Did they see him as some kind of Zarkon-in-the-making?

Shiro said, “Keith, we’re going to get him back.” He was talking like he intended to disarm a bomb with words.

Keith gave Shiro no room to breathe. “ _Now_.”

They had a staring contest. Keith was the volcano that had suddenly erupted and Shiro was the man forced to move or get burned.

“Pidge,” Shiro said at last, “you’d better start tracking that lion. No point in anybody taking off their armor. Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Either Lance was lucky or the guards were careless. He heard a snatch of a mumble, probably thanks to a passing patrol.

“…only waiting now for Lord Zarkon to arrive and interrogate the prisoner himself…”

All of Lance’s fears turned to liquid and flooded his brain. _Zarkon_? Zarkon was coming _here_? Lance was going to face Zarkon? _Alone_?

He started screaming. There was nothing else he could do. He let the terror fill him, let himself scream it all out. Lance could _not_ withstand Zarkon’s power. He would be dead in a second. An interrogation? The Galra wanted him to give up information, to betray Team Voltron.

Lance had already done that once today. He swore that, as his final act, he would not talk. If Zarkon had some other way of prying information from him—telepathy or mind-melding—then so be it. But Lance was weak. His body wouldn’t hold up to much torture. He would endure what he had to, get it over with, and then get blasted to smithereens for it.

His entire body was shaking. If there had been anything in his stomach, he would have thrown it up. Tears, unbidden, streamed ceaselessly from his eyes. He imagined what the others would say if they saw him like this.

Shiro would demand that he power through it and be a soldier. Keith would tell him to snap out of it and probably hit him. Pidge would give him facts and logic. Hunk would somehow find something to say that would make all of this seem manageable.

But Lance wasn’t good at cheering people up. He was glad that none of them were here. He was sick of keeping it together. His life had turned to shit the day he’d become a paladin, and now he wished that none of it had ever happened. He’d given up a comfortable life on Earth for this?

What day was it on Earth? Maybe it was a holiday season for the academy. He picked New Years. If he had never become a paladin, he could be curled up on the couch at home, bundled up in blankets, watching movies with his family—people who might have rolled their eyes at him, but they’d always been warmer to him than the other paladins.

Lance’s family had probably stopped looking for him by now. They’d probably learned how to talk at family meals again, probably didn’t even think about his empty seat at the table anymore. What was most heartbreaking about that thought was, the Lance they were saving a seat for didn’t exist anymore. He might still have a loud mouth, but Lance wasn’t a clueless kid anymore. If he sat down with his own family for dinner tonight, they wouldn’t recognize him. He didn’t belong there, didn’t belong here. He’d taken a leap to the greener grass and hadn’t landed on the other side. He was stuck somewhere between the two places, stretched thin and wearing down.

Great. He wasn’t even going to die himself. And he would never get to apologize to anyone.

If his mom was here, she would tell Lance to get some sleep. _Waking up is like being your own sunrise_ , she used to say. _Make something new for yourself. Make it warm._

Lance held his breath to stop himself from crying. _Okay Mom_ , he thought. He nursed himself horizontal, still curled into a ball. He would probably only have nightmares, but it couldn’t be anything worse than what was waiting for him in real life.

 

* * *

 

In his dream, he was dead. It was kind of like leaving Earth to become a paladin. Nobody ever heard from him again, they just assumed he was gone. He watched Team Voltron bond with its newest fifth member. Nobody glanced at the empty space Lance used to fill. His family held a small memorial for him on Earth, without remains. And then it ended. Because after that, there was no one left to remember him.

 

* * *

 

How long had he been in here? Hours? Days? It was so dark, his eyes hadn’t even adjusted. He couldn’t see his hand half an inch in front of his face. Maybe this was the Galra way of trying to drive prisoners insane. Kind of a stupid plan. How were they going to get any valuable information out of someone whose brain they’d turned to mush?

Lance— _Lance_ —had actually taken to doing mental exercises to keep himself aware. He was doing _math_ in his head, of all things. Giving himself multiplication problems, complicated enough that he had to pay attention, basic enough that he could do them without having to write them out. He practiced spelling long words. He wrote a letter in his head to all the people he wanted to apologize to.

_Dear Mom and Dad, Sorry I was an awful son. Sorry I didn’t write more often while I was at the academy. Sorry I didn’t call before running off to save the universe._

_Dear Shiro, Sorry for letting down the team. Sorry for biting off more than I could chew. At least I was some good in the end as a distraction for you guys to get away, eh?_

_Dear Allura, Sorry for asking you out all those times. That was probably weird. You had way more important things to do, seeing as you’re a princess and all._

_Dear Hunk, Sorry for being an awful friend and getting you pulled into this mess in the first place._

_Dear Pidge, I don’t think I ever really wronged you that badly? I mean, I did freak out that time you said you were a girl, so sorry for making such a big deal out of that I guess._

_Dear Keith, …Sorry for disappointing you, I guess, and always making you mad. I probably did half the shit I did to impress you, or just for your attention. I don’t know why. Sorry._

Seventy-six times thirty was easy because of the zero. Sixty-one times eleven was easy because of all the ones, it was pretty much just addition. Fifty-five times six was easy because… because…

Maybe the Galra were just trying to soften up his mental defenses by making him paranoid. Maybe they thought he’d be more willing to cooperate if answering their questions meant he didn’t have to come back to this dark cell.

Well, Lance wasn’t going to break. It was hard to hurt a man who’d already given up.

 

* * *

 

Keith hadn’t taken much stock of the others as they worked, but when Pidge finally spoke up, he realized how quiet it had been.

“I’ve been thinking,” Pidge said, “about what we can do to skew the odds slightly in our favor. We are invading an army base, after all. An army base complete with a prison.”

And, well, even Keith had to admit that they were digging for scraps. They needed every advantage they could get. Keith didn’t look up from his console, which he was using in an attempt to bond with Blue (as he had done before any of this had even started, back when Team Voltron hadn’t even known the lions existed) to see if he could use Blue to locate Lance’s exact position inside the base, trying to concentrate on both it and the conversation at the same time. “And?”

“And, I feel it goes without saying that we’re being idiots for rushing into this, but, if we’re going to, we had better go all in with our best hand. Even though you’re completely crazy, I’m going to do my best to help you. I think I’ve got a plan.”

 

* * *

 

For the first time, his cell door opened. Lance shrunk back, expecting Zarkon and his giant cloak to take up the entire doorway. His pupils screamed at the sudden influx of light. He shrunk back into the corner, hands shielding his eyes, unable to see who it was.

“Lance!”

But that voice… He recognized it… So, then… Lance slowly lowered his hands.

“Sh-Shiro?”

“Can you walk?”

“Shiro, what are you doing here?” Lance demanded, upset and angry. “They’ll kill you! Is everyone else here, too? Stop it! Forget me, get out of here!”

Lance felt hands on him, Shiro pulling him up, helping Lance to stand. Lance blinked furiously, trying to get colors to go back to normal. Shiro’s voice said, “What are you talking about? We came to rescue you, now let’s go.”

“What’s the matter with you?!” Lance yelled, throwing him off. “I already almost got you all killed once. If you brought everyone here for me, you must really be a dumbass.”

“We don’t have time for this, Lance,” said Shiro. “Where’s your armor?”

Lance scoffed. “ _We don’t have time for this_ ,” he mimicked. “That’s what you always say to me, even when it’s _me_ you’re trying to save?”

“Lance, Zarkon is _here_ , now _move_!” Shiro ordered, giving Lance a hard shove toward the empty hallway. There was a buzz of noise from Shiro’s headset. “Keith found your armor. Let’s get out of here.”

Zarkon’s name had struck enough fear into Lance’s heart that he stowed his qualms. Slower and clumsier, he followed Shiro down the empty hallway. If Team Voltron was here now, Lance wasn’t going to waste it.  But if anyone else got hurt because of him…

“Where are all the guards?” Even Lance noticed his own clipped tone of voice.

“It was Pidge’s idea,” Shiro explained hurriedly. “We triggered an alert in the east sector so that all non-essential personnel would rush there, then locked it down. Makes it so that _we_ only have to fight the bare minimum, and most of them Keith’s already taken out.”

They rounded a corner and skidded to a halt just before slamming into Keith and Hunk, each carrying an armful of blue-plated armor. Without so much as a hello, Keith growled, “Put this on,” and shoved the helmet onto Lance’s head. He also roughly surrendered Lance’s bayard.

“Whoa, what are you-”

Several voices cried out his name at once—Allura, Coran, Pidge. Lance’s heart twinged. This rescue felt condescending. _Let’s jerk the weakest team member around while we get him out of his own mess._

“Lance, are you hurt?” asked Allura.

Lance’s tone was decidedly cool when he answered, “I’m fine.”

He spent a minute gathering his gear and fitting into his armor. It didn’t feel right. Were Keith and Hunk sure they had gotten the right armor?

The overhead lights crackled. Purple static darted along the ceiling like ocean waves. As a unit, Lance, Hunk, Keith, and Shiro turned to face the direction they’d come. At the end of the hallway, Lord Zarkon brandished a glowing ball of violet sparks in his hand, bellowing in rage, charging into battle.

“Hunk!” Shiro commanded. “Get Lance out of here! We’ll find a way to meet up with you!”

“You got it!” yelled Hunk. He grabbed Lance by the arm and started running. “You okay, dude?” he asked. “They didn’t do, like, any weird Galra experiments on you, did they? I mean, that doesn’t matter now, I’m just happy you’re alive, but-”

In their ears, Pidge hollered, “Less talking, faster running!”

“You’re right, you’re right!” Hunk agreed. “Lance, your lion is in the basement. That’s where we need to get, and then we can all escape.”

“Okay, how far is the basement?” asked Lance.

Pidge said, “Twenty-three stories down.”

“Oh, for the love of-”

“Stairs!” yelled Hunk, pointing, and pushed Lance to the side. They ran down several flights without difficulty, but hit problems with security on level 15. Lance was a stumbling mess. He barely managed to get one shot fired in the time it took for Hunk to neutralize all three guards. They kept running to where the stairs ended on level 10, then ducked back into another hallway.

More guards were waiting for them here. Lance could feel his arms shaking. He could barely point his gun. He was out of breath and exhausted, mentally weary from being held captive, and wary of the way his friends were treating him. It was only by luck that he managed to take down one of the four.

“Whoa,” said Hunk. “Dude, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Lance snapped. “Just… kinda tired.”

Allura’s voice said, “We don’t have time to stop, Lance. Push through! You’re almost there!”

“Ten more flights of stairs and who knows how many guards!” Lance protested.

“You could be a little more grateful that we’re rescuing you!” said Pidge.

“I didn’t want you to!”

That gave them all pause. “What does that mean, Lance?” asked Hunk, taken aback. He was giving Lance that same heartbroken look he had given the team when they had initially argued with him about saving the Balmera. Lance looked at his shoes.

“Let’s get moving,” he muttered. He started running without waiting for Hunk. It took Hunk a minute to catch up.

“No, seriously, Lance, what are you talking about? Why would you want to stay with the Galra?” he pressed.

“Keith, Shiro—how you guys doing?” Lance asked loudly, changing the subject. The sounds of a fight were coming in loud over his radio.

“Can’t talk!” yelled Shiro, and that was that.

Hunk and Lance reached another set of down-leading stairs. They ran into a final set of guards on the last landing, which Lance again failed to so much as scratch. Through another set of doors, they found Blue, dark-eyed and statuesque. Lance could feel her responding to his presence, slowly waking up. If everyone else on Team Voltron hated him, at least his bond with Blue was true.

“Okay, get in your lion!” said Hunk. “Drop me off on the uppermost west entry point. We can give Keith and Shiro some covering fire to escape.”

“No need!” Keith gasped. “Shiro collapsed the ceiling! We’ve got a wall between us and Zarkon, and a path to the roof. Let’s get out of here!”

 

* * *

 

“Are we going to talk about what you said back there?”

For a moment, Lance felt very satisfied pretending Shiro didn’t exist. _Of course Shiro wasn’t at his bedroom door. Who was Shiro? Lance was happy at home on Earth._ He sighed. Coran was there, too, peering concernedly in over Shiro’s shoulder, twirling his moustache idly between two fingers.

Lance would be lying if he said he hadn’t been expecting this, but it still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. He didn’t want the others hanging all over him right now. He wanted to get used to being in his old cell again.

“Just leave me alone, Shiro,” Lance muttered, not facing him. “We don’t have to talk about everything.”

“Lance,” said Shiro. “ _Lance_.”

Lance hunched his shoulders, refusing to turn around. “What? What do you want from me?”

Shiro blinked. “Hey. Are you alright? What’s got you acting this way? Is it something the Galra did to you? Is it shock?”

“No,” said Lance. “It’s nobody’s fault but my own. Just leave me alone, Shiro.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Lance?” asked Coran. “The Galra are dangerous. It’s possible they interfered with your mind without you knowing. We have some tests we could run to make sure everything is as it should be up there.”

Now, Lance turned around, looking offended and betrayed. “You think the Galra brainwashed me?” The looks on their faces were answer enough. Lance clenched his fists. “Well, they didn’t.”

Shiro prickled at Lance’s hostile tone. “Of course,” he agreed, in a very mature and condescending voice that made Lance sure he didn’t actually believe Lance. “Still—a few tests couldn’t hurt. Better safe than sorry, right?”

He tensed like he expected Lance to fight him. Lance glared. Shiro didn’t back down. Lance gave up. “If it’ll make you believe me,” he sighed, “fine. They didn’t do anything to me. They kept me in a cell the whole time.”

Shiro looked relieved that Lance was cooperating. It made Lance sick, that Shiro actually suspected him of being brainwashed. That Shiro knew so little about what went on in Lance’s head that he couldn’t even understand why Lance was upset.

“I’ll go fire up the machines,” Coran said. “Should be set in a few ticks. Come up when you’re ready.”

He left Shiro and Lance alone.

“Lance,” Shiro said. He used _that_ tone.

“What?” Lance said irritably. “Don’t want to leave me alone in case  I’m brainwashed? Glad you trust me so much, Shiro.”

Shiro took a step into the room. “Why are you acting like this, Lance? You’re defensive and antagonistic. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with you. It’s like you aren’t even happy to be back.”

“Because I’m secretly a spy for an evil space empire.”

“I don’t know, Lance. Are you?”

Lance shrugged out of his jacket and threw it onto his bed. “Can’t believe you just asked me that,” he muttered. He shouldered past Shiro and set off after Coran.

“Lance!” Shiro called. There was the sound of footsteps dogging Lance’s progress down the corridor. “Lance, I’m sorry!”

“Whatever, Shiro. Keep an eye on me, or whatever you want to do, until you see I’m not brainwashed. But do it without talking to me. And once you see that nothing’s wrong with me, just leave—me—alone.”

 

* * *

 

Lance sat on the padded bench, raised above the eye-level of Shiro and Coran. Coran read Altean figures on a monitor until Lance felt like his brain was going to smash its way out of his skull and make a break for it. Shiro waited just as impatiently, anxious and white-knuckled, staring over Coran’s shoulder as though he could make heads or tails of what the screen said.

It took so long that Lance began to wonder if he might not have gotten brainwashed after all. How would he know? That cell _had_ left his mind feeling kind of hazy.

“Right as rain,” said Coran, straightening suddenly. “Nothing to worry about, Shiro. He’s the real Lance, as real as ever. Completely un-tampered with.”

“That’s a relief. Thank you, Coran. So he’s just being moody,” Shiro joked. Normally, it would have passed right over Lance’s head. He would have delivered an indignant _Hey_! but quickly forgotten about it.

Lance stood up and walked out. When Shiro came bounding after him and pounded on Lance’s door, Lance pretended to be asleep. Eventually, he fell asleep for real.

 

* * *

 

Keith shoved Lance awake. Lance, startled, woke with a cry and a racing heart. Were the Galra back? Was Zarkon coming for him? Had he doomed the others _again_?

Oh. No. It was just Keith, frowning down at him with scalding eyes. “Get up,” he said, kicking the side of Lance’s bed.

Lance had fallen asleep in his jacket, lying on his stomach, clutching his pillow. He wiped the drool off his chin with as much dignity as he could muster and sat up. “What are _you_ doing here?” he asked nastily.

“What the hell, Lance? You’re missing training,” Keith accused. Of course. Training was Keith's bible study. Missing it was a cardinal sin in his book.

Lance shrugged. “And?”

Keith kicked Lance’s bed again, harder. “Get _up_ ,” he hissed. “Quit sulking, get out of bed, and put your gear on.”

Lance shot him a sideways, slitted glare. “Doesn’t that hurt your foot or something?”

“Get up,” Keith repeated, having none of it.

Lance gave a loud, laborious sigh. “Not in this lifetime.”

“Okay, what is your problem? You act like you don’t want to be here. Do you know how much we all risked to get you back? It was no picnic.”

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t ask for any of that, did I?”

“What does _that_ mean?”

It was easier to be honest with Keith than it was with Hunk—Hunk was Lance’s best friend, not to mention overly-sensitive. Keith didn’t take things nearly so personal.

“It means,” Lance said heatedly, “that I don’t see why you would waste one second even thinking of rescuing me after that shitshow! It was my own damn fault that I got captured.”

“We can’t pilot Voltron without you, Lance. Of course we went back for you.”

“The Black Lion chose a new paladin with Shiro. Blue could have, too.”

Keith stared at him, shocked. “Quit being stupid. _You’re_ our blue paladin. If you think you can be replaced, you’re an idiot.”

Lance laid back down, suddenly extremely tired and extremely sick of dealing with Keith. “Yeah, that’s me. Lance McClain the Idiot.”

Keith kicked Lance’s bed a third time. Lance was really getting sick of that. “Stop,” Keith growled. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Leave it,” Lance insisted.

“ _Tell me_.”

“Why are you even doing this?” Lance asked. “It’s not like we’re friends. I mean, sure, we’re on a team, and we work together, but we don’t really like each other.”

Keith stared at Lance some more. That bastard. Why couldn’t he do things the way normal people did? Always staring and actually thinking about things. “Because,” Keith said slowly, “when I figured out I was Galra, this was all I wanted. Someone who I knew was there for me, no matter what. You made one mistake, Lance. We’ve all done it before. So quit beating yourself up over it.”

Lance turned on his shoulder and curled into a ball, hugging his pillow tight. “Why should I?”

“Because none of it’s true! You’ve always been an asset to this team, and you know it.”

“Name one time,” said Lance. “I dare you.”

Keith groaned. “You are being ridiculous. You’ve helped millions of times! We wouldn’t even be able to form Voltron without you! We would hop around on one leg trying to fight Zarkon.”

Lance’s jaw worked. He stared at the wall. “See?” he mumbled. “You can’t.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Keith said again.

“Shiro and Allura broke into a Galra trading post! Coran runs the entire ship and fixes it after every battle! You fought Zarkon hand-to-hand! Hunk made sure we saved the Balmera! Pidge has hacked into every enemy base we’ve gone to, and what have I done? Oh, that’s right. Lance got captured by the enemy and blown up that one time! Oh, yeah, Keith, I see it your way now! I’m such a hero!”

“Lance-”

“Look, just get out!” Lance yelled. “I want to be alone right now.”

“Lance-”

“I said leave.”

Lance heard the doors slide open and shut. _Stupid, pathetic idiot_. He hugged his pillow tighter. _Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Stop crying._

It wasn't even just that he was useless to the team, it was that he  _didn't belong_. Now more than ever before, that was painfully apparent. He couldn't talk to any of them. None of them had any clue how he really thought about things, not even Hunk. And if he tried to tell them, they brushed him off. Sure, he was only an additional number in a fight, and Lance could deal with that. But on the ship? When they weren't the paladins of Voltron, when they were Lance and Keith and Hunk and Pidge and Shiro, the others still didn't think anything of him. They saw him as a tiresome joke. Lance didn't want to be somewhere where he wasn't valued.

The doors sounded again. Lance froze, doing his best not to shake or make a sound. He swallowed and blinked the tears back.

“We came back for you because we care about you, you know,” Keith said quietly. “So if you could stop pushing us away, that’d be great.”

 

* * *

 

For two days, Lance was distant. He was callous and rude and dismissive. He avoided the others, and if they addressed him, he either ignored them or snapped at them. Pidge tried to corner him in the kitchen, and he said something so foul that it was possible he would never be forgiven—by anyone on the team, not just Pidge.

He stayed in his room and shut them all out. And when he got sick of staring at those four stupid walls, he went to different secluded parts of the castle and enjoyed knowing that the others couldn’t find him. He never went to training. He stopped eating with them. He did all this in the hopes that someone would snap, and the game would be over. They would tell him exactly what everyone was thinking, that Lance needed to get with the program or go, and Lance would say, _Fine. I’ll go._

They’d ship him back to Earth and let him go back to his regular, lackluster life.

Lance sighed, staring out at the stars through a glossy window. A lackluster life. Not happy there, not happy here. He brought his knees to his chest and buried his face. A crisis, that was what this was. The perfect amount of melodrama for a guy floating endlessly through space with a mission to defeat a giant alien army that had already conquered most of the known universe. He thought he could say he deserved it; he may not have been a battle-hardened warrior, but he hadn’t been a bad person, either. More than once, he’d put his life on the line for the team. They just… hadn’t noticed.

It was stupid, how much of the past two days had been filled with him crying. Crying wasn’t going to fix anything. It was just going to make his face bloated and raw.

He kept waiting for the sound of doors sliding open at the other end of the room, but it never came. Evidently, he was effective at hiding.

 

* * *

 

Keith stopped Lance in the corridor. He held out a hand and blocked Lance’s path bodily. Lance, who had been staring at the ground and absorbed in his own thoughts, was caught off guard. He tried to step around Keith, but Keith countered him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Keith demanded.

Lance hoped his eyes weren’t red. “Around.”

“No, Lance, you haven’t. You’ve been nowhere. We’re your team, and we need to be able to depend on you, but you’ve been ditching training and avoiding all of us. This has to stop.”

“Gee, Keith, great idea,” Lance said sarcastically. “I had no idea what I was doing would affect the team. Good thing we straightened that out.”

Keith visibly gritted his teeth. “You’re being a moron.”

“What else is new, right? Get out of my way.”

“Like hell.”

“I’ll make you.”

“Oh, yeah? How? Only one of us has been to combat training in the past two days.” Keith took a step closer, so that he and Lance were practically nose to nose. Lance wanted to strangle him, even if he knew that he had no chance of beating Keith in a fight.

“Move, Keith,” he said again.

Keith’s eyes flashed. “Thought you were going to make me.”

It wasn’t smart, but Lance swung. Keith was ready; he blocked Lance’s arm with minimal effort. Lance swung again. Again, Keith deflected the blow as though swatting away a pesky fly.

Lance’s mind shut off. He became a machine. His surroundings blurred as he threw punch after punch, growing angrier, frustrated when Keith met every strike with an equally-powerful defense. Lance pushed Keith, step by step, down the empty corridor, fighting his way down the hall. Keith gave no indication that he was tiring, in drastic contrast to Lance’s heavy breathing and hot face. Lance took another swing—Keith again blocked it—before deciding that he’d had enough. Lance stepped back, fuming, and tried to recollect his wits. Keith watched him like he was waiting for the next hit to come.

Lance flipped his middle finger up at Keith, panting. “See?” he said. He indicated their progress down the corridor with a hand gesture. “Moved you. Now get out of my way.”

“Are you going to stop being a piece of shit?”

“Let me hit you again, we’ll find out.”

Keith raised his arms to block. “Do it. Hit me, Lance. If that’s what you need to do, just fucking hit me and get it all out of your system.”

Lance stopped. “Is that what you’re doing?” he demanded. “You dumb motherf…”

For a moment, all he saw was red. He didn’t know why he was angry, but he felt like he’d been tricked. Keith thought he knew best, as usual, and was just trying to tucker Lance out as though that would take them to the source of Lance’s problems.

Keith was expecting a fighter to strike. He wasn’t expecting Lance to abandon all training and tactlessly lash out, a stupid, quick battering of fists that caught Keith off guard. Lance shoved him aside and blew past him, down the corridor and into his room, where he had to fight the urge to physically barricade the door for insurance.

 

* * *

 

Keith stared into his food goo and frowned. Lately, he’d been stuck reliving the conversation from the day Lance had been rescued. Lance hadn’t really meant the things he’d said, had he? He had to know how much the team needed him. Without Lance, there wouldn’t _be_ a Team Voltron. Blue was the first lion they’d found. Lance had saved all their lives the day he’d flown them off Earth.

Keith was a focused soldier with nerves of steel. Nothing spooked him. When the chair next to him scratched the floor, he jumped out of his skin.

“Ah! Jeez, Pidge, wear a bell.”

“You look worried,” said Pidge. “Now, I’m no therapist, but I like to think I’m good at giving advice because, scientifically speaking, I’m emotionally objective about most things. So, when I saw you staring into space just now, I thought I might be able to help.”

Keith pushed some goo around with his spoon. “You think?” he asked.

“Is it Lance?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “That jerk isn’t even happy that we saved him!” he yelled. “He makes one mistake, and suddenly he doesn’t deserve to be on Team Voltron anymore, and he hates anybody who tries to tell him differently! Can you believe that? So I’ve been trying to talk sense into him, but it’s like trying to shove a message into a brick wall’s head—brick walls don’t have heads.”

“That’s a colorful analogy, but I think I get it,” Pidge agreed, nodding solemnly. “Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t get it! I told him we couldn’t form Voltron without him, and he just got angrier and sadder!” said Keith. “And then I tried to get him to work through his anger, but that only made it worse.”

“Okay. I’ve done some mental math,” said Pidge, glasses glinting as they were slightly readjusted atop Pidge’s nose, “and it appears you are an idiot.”

“Huh?”

Eyes rolling, Pidge said, “Lance doesn’t want to hear that he’s part of a team. He wants to hear that we’re _more_ than a team, that we care about him as someone more than just the paladin of the blue lion. Now, I’m not going to do that because I’m going to be pissed at him until he stops acting like a baby. So maybe you should tell him your big secret, there, guy.”

Keith understood everything perfectly, until the very end. “What? What big secret? He knows I’m Galra, that’s not a secret.”

Pidge’s sarcastic look could’ve reduced a boulder to dust. “Are you kidding? Please tell me you’re joking right now. It’s so obvious _I_ saw it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Pidge’s eyes narrowed. “Are you messing with me right now? I can’t tell.”

“I’m not messing with you, are you messing with me?”

“I’m not messing with you!”

“Then tell me whatever it is you’re trying to tell me! What secret?” Keith demanded. Pidge looked slightly alarmed.

“That you—you know!”

“That I _what_?”

“You like him!” Pidge got out at last, with no small amount of arm flailing. “AKA the reason you wouldn’t let any of us rest until we got him back. And why you’re so upset that he doesn’t want to talk to you. And… Oh. Your face. Was I, uh, wrong?”

Keith could feel his mouth hanging open. Pidge’s words left him feeling like he’d suddenly wormholed with a faulty teludav. Did he…? There was no way he liked Lance. He would’ve been the _first_ one to know if he did! The only reason he was so acutely aware of Lance’s presence all the time—why Lance got him riled up so easily—why he felt things so intensely around Lance—was because…

Oh fuck. He really… Keith actually liked Lance.

_Lance_.

Keith was already standing up, kicking his chair over in his haste and racing back through the castle. Behind him, Pidge yelled, “Are you gonna finish your food goo? Can I have it?”

 

* * *

 

_Get a grip_ , thought Lance. _Stop crying, damn it. This isn’t the first time in your life you’ve been disappointed._

He sat on the edge of his bed, head held in his hands, bouncing his leg up and down. There was nothing for it. If the others weren’t going to kick him out, he would have to leave. He didn’t deserve to be on Team Voltron and they all knew it.

The door slid open. Keith stood on the threshold, looking like he’d slept under a steamroller.

“Keith? What are you-”

“Shut up,” Keith said. He didn’t explain what he was doing here, didn’t try to talk to Lance again. He pushed Lance down onto the bed, crowded in as far as he could get, and grabbed two handfuls of Lance’s jacket.

“Whoa, what are you-”

“I bonded with Blue,” Keith blurted.

Lance’s face was bright red. Of all the things Keith might have said, that was one of the last Lance would have expected. “You’re sitting in my lap, Keith,” Lance said. Just in case Keith needed that pointed out to him. Just in case he had gotten space-possessed and the real Keith was locked inside his own mind and needed to snap out of it. This was definitely not something an un-space-possessed Keith would ever do.

“You don’t get it,” Keith pressed, lightly hitting Lance on the chest. He seemed completely content where he was, despite the fact that it reduced Lance to a stammering mess. “How could I have possibly bonded with _your_ Lion? Twice?”

Lance sputtered intelligently for a moment, still very much preoccupied with Keith’s tight jeans being much closer to Lance than they’d ever been before. Who knew why this guy did anything he did? He was weird, he didn’t know how to talk to people, that was just Keith—he did what he wanted. But _this_? This was new levels of not normal. “I-I-I don’t—I don’t know!” Lance managed at last.

Keith’s eyebrows quirked upward. “Yeah? I think I do.”

He grabbed Lance by the shirt and roughly dragged him closer. Suddenly, there was a lot going on for Lance’s mouth that had never happened to it before. Lance’s eyes blew wide open. _Keith was_ —Keith had just—Lance and Keith were—were…

Oh fuck.

Keith liked him? Since when? Why was he kissing Lance?

In the second and a half it took for his brain to shut off, Lance decided he didn’t care. He really, really didn’t care. He was kissing Keith back, and that was the only solid fact in the world. Lance fixed his hands on Keith’s hips and met Keith with all of his unbridled force. Their teeth clacked together, but that was what it was. Keith and Lance had always been destined to clash. He didn’t care about the context of this kiss. Lance’s heart was starved and ravenous. He wanted anything Keith was willing to give him, even if it was just a sloppy hook-up they would both regret tomorrow.

Keith’s teeth pulled at Lance’s lower lip. He kissed the same way he fought—like he had everything to lose and everything to gain. Like there was fire locked inside of him that had finally taken charge. Like every moment between battles—between kisses—was spent in anticipation of the next one.

Lance was his punching bag. He wanted to absorb it all. He wanted Keith’s fire, his grit, his intensity. There was no such thing as ‘too much.’ He wanted everything.

Keith pulled back. “You’re crying again,” he said.

“Shut up,” said Lance. Lance moved to wipe his eyes, but Keith took his hands and pushed them back down onto the bed. He reached up with his own thumbs to wipe away Lance’s tears, gently. He was Lance’s entire field of vision.

“This team gives a shit about you. _I_ —give a shit about you.”

Lance couldn’t take it. He looked away, at the foot of his impersonal bed. “You didn’t have to do that just to make a point.”

Keith ineffectually pushed Lance’s shoulders. “I didn’t do it for _you_ , idiot,” he said hotly. “I did it because—because—because you mean something to me, okay? You’re part of what makes being part of Voltron—being part of this family—a good thing. Okay?”

Lance’s brow furrowed. “Did you just insinuate that we’re members of a family making out?”

Keith hit him again. “Don’t miss the point, idiot.”

“Well, why should I trust you? I thought you hated me.”

Keith licked his lips and drew Lance in again, pulling him even closer, kissing him even harder. As far as second kisses went, it wasn’t that terrible, Lance guessed, his stomach fluttering. He was entirely distracted from whatever he’d been thinking about before, completely overcome by Keith. Nobody on Earth had ever kissed Lance. He wasn’t entirely sure this was real. Was he dreaming?

Keith broke the kiss. “I don’t hate you.”

Lance was slightly dazed. “I guess you just sound annoyed no matter what, then.”

Keith kissed him again. Lance wasn’t sure what it was for that time, but he decided that he liked getting kissed more than he liked his family’s home-baked dessert pies, and he had been craving those things since, like, a week before he even left Earth. He wrapped his hands around Keith’s lower back, pulled Keith flush against him.

“Do you get it yet?” Keith asked expectantly, chest heaving, lips provocatively red. The feeling that consumed Lance was the same he got when he woke too quickly from a dream.

“Starting to.”

“Good.” Keith kissed him another time. Lance was surprised another time, but much more receptive to it by now. “You should go talk to Shiro. He’s sulking. He thinks he’s a bad leader.”

“I’m good here.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Seriously, go sort things out with him.”

“Kiss me again.”

Keith did.

Lance said, “Okay, I’ll go.”

Lance wormed out from underneath Keith and made his way out the door. He stuck his head back in to add, “But you better be serious about still being here. And I mean that. Don’t you dare move. I’ll be right back, and then we’re keeping this thing going.”

He was rewarded with a rare bout of Keith’s laughter.

 

* * *

 

Shiro was in an empty room, sitting on the floor looking pensively off into space, when Lance found him. It was the same position Lance had been in, almost to a T. “Knock, knock,” said Lance, sheepish. Shiro looked up, surprised.

“Lance! Hey. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” said Lance, which was true. “Keith— _uhh_ —Keith helped me out a bit.” If Shiro noticed the way Lance turned bright red, he didn’t say anything.

“Keith? Huh. Okay, then.” Shiro patted the floor beside him, an invitation. For once, it didn’t feel like he was doing it out of obligation. “Wanna talk?”

Lance sat next to him, carefully arranging his hands in his lap. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I just kinda… felt like shit. You know, I’ve always seen myself as the one holding the team back, and this time I _really_ messed up. So it got to me. You know, I talk a lot and I’m loud because I don’t have a lot to offer, and I don’t want anybody to overlook me. Because I know if I didn’t do all that stuff, it would be so easy to. You guys are all out there being badass all the time, and I’m just… making jokes. All the time, I’m just making jokes.”

Shiro sighed. Lance winced.

“Lance,” Shiro began, and Lance prepared himself for a lecture. “I want to apologize.”

Oh.

Wait, what?

“I haven’t been fair to you,” said Shiro, “and I didn’t even see it. I’m sorry that we made you feel this way. You’re an important part of the team, Lance. We really wouldn’t have made it this far without you. What’s more—you’re a good guy. A good man. I’m proud of you. You’ve really turned into a strong fighter. Someone who upholds Voltron’s legacy. Not that you weren’t before. It takes someone really courageous to rescue a man they’ve never met.”

“Who?” asked Lance, confused.

Shiro smirked. “ _Me_. Remember?”

“Oh! Oh, yeah. Well, that was nothing.”

“Not to me, it wasn’t,” Shiro said. “What I’m saying is, this team would not be the same without you, and I like Team Voltron just the way it is. You can’t afford to beat yourself up over little mistakes. This job… it is tough. But not everybody can do it. The fact that you can says something about you, Lance. I’ll say it again—I’m really proud of you.”

“Wow… Thanks, Shiro.” Lance shifted a little uncomfortably. He couldn’t shake off the blossom of warmth in his chest. “And to think I was getting ready to leave. But then Keith, er, talked to me.”

“Yeah, so you say,” said Shiro, laughing. “I never really thought of Keith as the most charismatic paladin. What did he say that go to you?”

Lance’s flush returned with a vengeance. “Nothing in particular,” he assured Shiro, his voice a little high. “I guess you could say he’s just good with his tongue.”

Shiro laughed again, clapped Lance on the shoulder. “Keith? I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah, me either,” said Lance. He swallowed. “He sure proved me wrong.”

“Well, whatever he said, I’m glad it worked,” said Shiro. The genuine fondness in his tone struck a chord with Lance. He didn’t usually get that from Shiro. Or he had to be on the brink of death for it.

Lance let the tension in his shoulders loosen a little. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Me too.”

How had Lance almost given this up?

 

* * *

 

By the time he got back to his room, Lance’s brain was practically cotton. He’d been so down on himself recently that the lifting of that immense burden made him feel weightless. He’d almost forgotten that Keith would still be waiting for him when the doors slid open.

Keith lounged on Lance’s bed, polishing his Galran dagger with a cloth. When Lance came in, he paused.

“How’d it go?” asked Keith. There was no need. Lance’s smile was bright and obvious.

“Good,” he said. He sat beside Keith, not even sure he wanted to go back to kissing. He just wanted to sit there and enjoy being happy. “You know, that thing is badass.” He was talking about Keith’s dagger. “I wish I had a badass knife passed down through a family of secret alien spies.”

Keith chuckled. “This thing gave me a lot of trouble. But I’m glad I understand it now.”

“It was your mom’s?”

 “Yeah. And when the team found out I was Galra, I could take it out and it would sort of feel like she was there with me. Telling me that everything would be okay. I don’t even know if that’s the kind of person she was, but it’s how I felt at the time.”

“I think she’d be proud of you.”

Keith didn’t say anything, which gave Lance pause. He looked over, and Keith was staring at him with soft shock. Keith blinked and cleared his throat. “Uh, thanks.”

Lance snorted. “Dude, you are so emotionally constipated.”

Keith opened his mouth indignantly, dropped whatever he was about to say when Lance laughed again. “Don’t call me _dude_ ,” said Keith. “We just made out!”

“Hey, I’ll call anyone _dude_. I called my grandmother dude, and I’ll call you dude, too. Look, there’s Keith, the _dude_ I made out with! Keith, _dude_ , you wanna make out again?” Lance dissolved into laughter, and was therefore very surprised when Keith’s lips once again found his.

“At least now I finally know how to get you to shut up,” Keith growled. “Come on. I’m starving.”

Lance let Keith haul him up off the bed. “Do you think Allura and Coran would let us stop on a nearby planet for food if we told them it was a date?” he asked.

Keith rolled his eyes. “I’d rather stick to what we know we can digest than get any unpleasant surprises.”

“Dude, what if they have nuggets?”

“Don’t even joke, Lance.”

“I know, my heart can’t take it either.”

 

* * *

 

 

After apologizing profusely to Pidge, and subsequently being forgiven, Lance and Keith sat on a couch together and took turns kicking each other and talking about different places on Earth that had good nuggets. At one point, Hunk showed up and contributed the best highlights of the conversation when he told them a story about his great aunt’s barbecue house that attracted Pidge to the discussion, too, and had them all in stitches.

After that, Coran wandered over and began describing an old Altean dish that made Lance put his food goo on the floor and push it away. Then came Allura and Shiro, who looked worn out from their usual meeting to draw up battle plans, but they joined the congregation when they saw that Lance was back to being part of the group.

They all stayed there, talking about anything that came to mind, until well into the night. Pidge (who had claimed an entire couch alone) fell asleep in a position that should’ve been suffocating. Hunk was snoring in between sentences. Lance’s head had dropped onto Keith’s shoulder, too tired to support itself. Shiro was comfortably relaxed, with a reserved smile on his face.

Allura was the first to excuse herself, yawning and shuffling out the door. After that, conversation blearily persisted, growing more hindered by laughter with every tick. Shiro was the only one worried about waking Pidge, but Hunk said, “Don’t worry about Pidge. A train couldn’t wake Pidge in the middle of the night. A space train.” Which, the way he said it, caused even more laughter.

And then Coran went, bidding them all goodnight as he did. That left Hunk, Shiro, Keith, and Lance, who lasted another thirty minutes before communally deciding that it was time to disband. Everyone got up except Hunk, who said he would prefer to be lazy now and pay for it in the morning, then rolled onto his back and set a world record for the time it took a person to fall asleep.

“That’s one way to do it,” said Shiro quietly. He took in the sight of Lance and Keith—Lance, with his head on Keith’s shoulder, tucked into Keith’s side; Keith, with his head resting on Lance’s, his arm around Lance—and yawned that he would see them tomorrow. Today. Whenever.

In the newfound silence, Lance found he really didn’t want to move, let alone get up. “I’m so tired,” he said to Keith’s neck.

Keith said nothing. His silence was slightly hesitant.

“Keith?”

“You know how you said you didn’t feel like you were much use to the team?” Keith said. Lance made a noise that translated to _Yes_. “I could train with you if you want. Combat, I mean. It might be a fun way for us to bond.”

Lance had enough energy to roll his eyes. “You really aren’t letting that go, are you, buddy?” Keith spluttered indignantly, but Lance saved him the trouble by saying, “Sure, sure, I’ll fight you. Tomorrow, though. Or today. Whenever. Right now, I want to go to sleep.” He turned into Keith’s side and attempted to get comfortable, but Keith slid out from under him.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You can wake up full of regret like Hunk and Pidge, but I’m sleeping in an actual bed.”

“Ugggggghhh,” said Lance. He wordlessly held out his hand. Keith accepted it and helped him to stand.

“Want me to walk you to your room?” Keith offered. Lance, who had returned to his new favorite place in Keith’s shoulder, nodded sleepily.

They didn’t talk much on the way to Lance’s room, because Lance was focusing all of his energy on not dying or passing out until they got there. Keith did most of the footwork. Lance was pretty sure there was one corridor where Keith had given up and dragged him. Why did castles have to be so ginormous? Sure, it looked cool, but they were completely useless for living in. Lance could leave his room to get a snack from the kitchen and die of old age on the way.

Finally, they reached his door. At that point, even Keith was pushing the limits of his exhaustion. Noticing this, Lance tugged him inside. "Come on. Bed," Lance muttered. "Sleep."

"Thank God," said Keith. He tugged off his jacket and climbed into Lance's bed. Lance definitely was not used to Keith being so comfortable around him, but he was far too tired to attempt fathoming out Keith's mind tonight. This was a thing that was going on, and if it turned out to be a hallucination in the morning, Lance would... well, he would probably not be surprised. Maybe this was all just a dream that his mind, which was always jealous when it came to thoughts of Keith, had concocted to snap Lance out of his crisis. Or if it was real, then that was awesome too because it meant that Keith actually did like Lance, which was more than Lance had ever hoped for since he'd known Keith. It was such a weird, new thing that Lance still wasn't admitting to himself the real reason he always did stuff for Keith's attention, just in case it turned out that this was all a huge misunderstanding. That way, it wouldn't all be a giant disappointment if it all folded in on itself.

"Hey," said Keith. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Facial mask. Excuse you."

"Are you kidding, Lance? You can skip one night."

Lance yawned. "Maybe  _you_ can, Mr. Heathen, but one of us actually cares about our skin. And I definitely can't stop now that I've already started."

"You didn't have the energy to walk," Keith drawled, "but you have the energy to put on a facial mask?"

Lance's only response was, "Priorities, Keith."

"Fine. Hurry up."

"Sheesh, you're grumpy when you're tired. Actually, scratch that, you're grumpy always. But especially when you're tired. No one said you had to wait for me."

"Shut up, I'm gonna do whatever I want."

And that was that. Lance finished applying the mask and climbed into bed. "Don't touch my face," he said. "It's settling." Keith grumbled something that sounded like,  _Unbelievable_. Immediately after that, however, he circled his arms around Lance and fell asleep, so Lance figured it wasn't really that big of a deal to him. 

 

* * *

 

 

"Your left!" shouted Keith. He swung with his sword, and Lance just managed to stumble into the proper form to block. Keith relented and showed Lance how to correct his footwork. "You're doing good, though."

Lance squinted at Keith, and because he was determined to be a pain forever, said pointedly, "I'm doing  _well_."

"Left," Keith muttered, barely discernible, and swung with all of his might at Lance's shield. Lance squawked and flailed into position, deflecting it more by luck than skill.

"Hey!" Lance shouted, as Keith laughed at him and dropped his sword. He pushed Lance's shield out of the way and tugged him in for a kiss, which, yeah, Lance had to admit that that really did shut him up. He hated how well that worked in Keith's favor, but was too busy being kissed to say such.

Lance was so glad this had not been a hallucination. If it had, he wouldn't have been able to reach up and deliver a hard pinch to Keith's side. Keith gasped in pain and lurched away, glaring at Lance. "You're impossible," he accused.

"Wrong again," said Lance. "I'm impossibly handsome and devilishly charming. You're happy I took the time to put on the face mask now, aren't you?"

Keith shook his head. "This is going to be a  _long_ mission to save the universe. Left!"

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe lance is so petty that he will sabotage his own kiss? i can.
> 
> glowstickhaloboy.tumblr.com


End file.
